Catholic Theocracy

At first, I thought this video -- which calls for restricting the vote to faithful Catholics and installing a Catholic monarch -- must be satire. However, Real Catholic TV is genuine. Watch it for yourself... and be amazed.



Notably, Real Catholic TV posted a non-clarifying clarification here.

Quite often, I've heard from my fellow atheists that talk of theocracy in America is absurd. Is it? I think not, and here's why:

• Much grassroots political activism is driven by religious dogma today, as we've seen up close and personal in Colorado. For example, every group pushing for Colorado's "personhood" amendment is deeply religious: Colorado Right to Life "commits to never compromise on God’s law, 'Do not murder.'" Personhood USA seeks to "honor the Lord Jesus Christ with our lives and actions," and they do so by acting as "missionaries to preborn children."
  
• Fundamentalist Christians and their mouthpieces like the American Family Association claim that America was founded as a Christian nation and that the Bible is the foundation for our laws. They do that, even though the Constitution is a thoroughly secular document, even though the 1797 Treaty with Tropoli denied that the US was a Christian nation, and so on. Their strategy of evasion seems to be effective. A 2007 USA Today article reports that "55% [of Americans] believe erroneously that the Constitution establishes a Christian nation." (75% of evangelicals and Republicans thought so.)
  
• A slew of well-funded and deeply-motivated Christian groups actively seek to reform America's laws in keeping with the will of God. So the basic mission of Concerned Women for America, for example, is to "bring Biblical principles into all levels of public policy."

So should we dismiss a call for Catholic theocracy as too looney to take seriously? I think not. For too many Christians, the only problem with it is that the culture must be forced to be thoroughly Christian too... oh, and they would vastly prefer their sect to be in power. That's hardly comforting.

Read more...

Pledge for an Updated Policy Paper on Colorado's "Personhood" Amendment

Once again, the religious right is launching a massive assault on reproductive rights in Colorado and other states. Help the Coalition for Secular Government fight back by pledging for an updated policy paper showing that "personhood" for zygotes is destructive to human life!

In 2008, the theocrats of the religious right gathered the requisite signatures to put a "personhood" amendment on Colorado's ballot. Known as Amendment 48, this proposed amendment to the state constitution sought to define a fertilized egg as a person with full legal rights in the Colorado constitution. Amendment 48 was defeated resoundingly with 73% against and 27% in favor.

Unfortunately, the crusade for "personhood" did not perish with Amendment 48. Instead, the crusaders went national, expanding the activity of Personhood USA to over 30 states. They're back in Colorado for the 2010 election with Amendment 62, a slightly modified version of Amendment 48.

Colorado's Amendment 62 would grant full legal rights to zygotes from the moment of fertilization. It proposes:

An amendment to the Colorado Constitution applying the term 'person' as used in those provisions of the Colorado Constitution relating to inalienable rights, equality of justice and due process of law, to every human being from the beginning of the biological development of that human being.

If passed and enforced, the measure would require abortions to be punished as first-degree murders, except perhaps to save the woman's life. It would ban any form of birth control that might sometimes prevent the implantation of a fertilized egg in the uterus -- including the birth control pill. And it would ban viable forms in vitro fertilization because the process usually creates more fertilized eggs than can be safely implanted in the womb. The measure poses a grave threat to the life, liberty, health, and happiness of the women and men of Colorado.

In 2008, the Coalition for Secular Government published a policy paper by Ari Armstrong and myself entitled Amendment 48 Is Anti-Life: Why It Matters That a Fertilized Egg Is Not a Person. We devoted countless hours to write, publish, and promote the paper. We're proud of the results of that work: our paper offered the only substantive moral critique of the proposed amendment and a detailed analysis of its effects.

Now Ari Armstrong and I need to update that policy paper for 2010's Amendment 62. We want the new paper to reflect the changes in the language of the amendment, as well as better address the arguments made in favor of "personhood." We'd like to discuss the worse political climate in Colorado, plus the spread of the "personhood" movement to other states. And once again, we'd like to promote the new paper via media releases, op-eds, and letters to the editor.

That work will be substantial: Ari and I expect the project to require two solid weeks of work from each of us. And we have other pressing demands on our time.

So we're asking you to contribute to the update of that policy paper by pledging your money in exchange for our work. We want to raise $2000 in pledges for the new policy paper -- by August 3rd at noon. In return, we promise to deliver the revised paper by August 31st, then promote it until the November election. If we raise less than that $2000 in pledges, we'll still revise the paper, but we'll scale back our efforts accordingly. If we raise more than that $2000 in pledges, we'll collect just $2000, pro-rating each pledge accordingly. Your pledge won't be due until we release the updated paper. That's because you're not pledging for effort but for results. If we don't release the paper for some reason, then you'll owe nothing.

If you want to stop the theocrats in Colorado and other states ... if you want to preserve our rights to abortion, birth control, and in vitro fertilization ... if you want to protect the health and lives of American women -- please pledge using the form below!

In the "Question or Comment" field, we'd love to hear why you're supporting our fight against the "personhood" movement. If you have questions or arguments that you'd like to see addressed in the updated policy paper, please include those too.



Most of all, thank you for your support!

Questions and Answers about Pledging

How much should I pledge?

That's entirely up to you. You should pledge whatever amount our efforts are worth to you, in light of your resources. Any pledge is welcome.

How can I know what positions and arguments policy paper will contain?

I'd recommend that you read the original version of the paper: Amendment 48 Is Anti-Life: Why It Matters That a Fertilized Egg Is Not a Person. We're proud of that work: we stand by all the claims and arguments in it. In addition, you can read CSG's summary of and publications on Amendment 48, as well our recent blog posts on Amendment 62.

Will anyone know that I've pledged?

Your name, e-mail, pledge amount, and comment will not be published or otherwise shared with anyone outside CSG unless required by law.

What if I change my mind after I pledge?

If you wish to increase your pledge, you can always pledge more. Just submit another pledge to be added to your existing pledges. If you make a mistake in your pledge, you can e-mail me at diana@dianahsieh.com before August 3rd. If you want to back out of your pledge... well, I won't have any legal way of enforcing this contract, but if you welch on your bill, you're a schmuck!

When will I find out whether you've gathered enough pledges for the full revision?

The pledge drive ends at noon on August 3rd. Sometime that day, I'll e-mail everyone who pledged with the results, as well as post an announcement to Politics without God.

How do I pay?

You'll be able to pay via PayPal, or you can send a check or money order. I prefer PayPal, but paper methods are fine too. (I will collect the pledges, then split those funds evenly with Ari Armstrong.)

Will my pledge be tax-deductible?

No. The Coalition for Secular Government is a non-profit corporation in Colorado, but the paperwork required by the federal government for tax-exemption is simply too burdensome.

What if I'm not satisfied with the policy paper?

If the policy paper doesn't offer the value you expected, then we will void your pledge and refund any money paid. All that you have to do is e-mail me explaining why you're dissatisfied.

Why are you doing this?

Ari Armstrong and I have devoted much time and effort to battling the religious right, but we have many demands on our time. We want to make sure that others value the work that we're doing, and we want to be fairly paid for that work.

What do I do if I have some other question?

Please e-mail me at diana@dianahsieh.com. I'll update these questions to clarify as needed.

Read more...

Leonard Peikoff on the NYC Mosque

[Originally written for NoodleFood.]

In his most recent podcast, Leonard Peikoff offers his view of the controversy surrounding the proposed mosque near Ground Zero in New York City. I encourage you to listen to his podcast for yourself.

I agree with much that he says, including his view of the threat posed by totalitarian Islam. However, I cannot regard this mosque as an objective threat to the rights of others without concrete evidence of ties to terrorism. For all the reasons outlined in my original post and Steve Simpson's post, I regard Dr. Peikoff's recommendation of stopping the building of the mosque by "any means possible" as wrong. That's a grave threat to my life and liberty, and I cannot support it.

In Dr. Peikoff's commentary, as well as in the recent round of Facebook comments, I've noticed a serious equivocation in the claim of my opponents that "we are at war."

Undoubtedly, the west is in a cultural war with Islam -- a war that most governments, organizations, and people refuse to acknowledge, let alone fight. Undoubtedly, our government should be at war with the states that export totalitarian Islam, pulverizing them into dust if necessary. Nonetheless, the fact remains that our government is not at war with our Islamic enemies, not in any real sense. Our political and military leaders are not willing to declare, let alone fight, a proper war in our self-defense.

As a result of that failure, the actions of the government toward those enemies are limited. For example, our government cannot prosecute imams for treason when they give aid and comfort to enemy terrorist groups like Hamas. Yes, that's wrong -- but that's what happens when a government refuses to identify its enemies. Similarly, our government cannot regard the proposed mosque as an enemy outpost, as it might, if we were truly at war.

The solution is not to pretend as if war has been declared -- and thereby empower the government to violate people's rights willy-nilly. The solution is not to eliminate the few remaining limits on government power that protect our capacity to speak freely. The solution is press hard for a proper war -- a war against our true enemies, a war fought purely on the basis of American self-interest.

Until we get that explicit declaration of war against our Islamic enemies, the hands of our government should be tied. That's a frightening prospect, as the Muslim terrorists will take advantage of that weakness. Yet if we loose the hands of Uncle Sam, others with seemingly threatening views will soon be crushed too... and that means you and me. Once that happens, we'll not have a civilization worth saving from the Muslims.

As much as I respect Dr. Peikoff's philosophic judgment, I cannot ignore that risk to my life and limb.

Read more...

NYC Mosque: Respect Property Rights

[Originally written for NoodleFood.]

On Facebook, I've been involved in some heated debates on the proposed building of a mosque near the World Trade Center lately. They were spawned by Ed Cline's note in support of conservative Pamela Geller's since-resolved dispute with PayPal. (For the record, I find Geller's use of Playboy'ed Atlas Shrugged images for her conservative politics offensive in more ways than I can count.)

Here's the problem: Geller wants to use the power of the state to prevent the mosque from being built, even though it's private property. That's wrong.

For people to protest the building of the mosque at that site would be entirely proper. (They could write letters to the editor or picket the site, for example.) For the government to investigate the builders of the mosque for any ties to terrorism is likely warranted. (Mere foreign funding is not evidence of terrorist ties though.) However, to forcibly block the construction of the mosque by using unjust laws that violate private property rights is morally wrong, not to mention politically dangerous.

People should not be judged guilty by the law and stripped of their rights just because they accept or advocate certain ideas. A person has the right to hold whatever beliefs he pleases -- however wrong -- provided that he does not attempt to force them on others. He has the right to practice the religion of his choosing, so long as he does so without violating the rights of others.

Even in times of war, a government cannot justly treat all immigrants from the enemy's country or all adherents of the enemy's religion as enemies. To strip a person of his rights to life, liberty, or property without some concrete evidence of his sympathy for or assistance to the enemy is to punish the innocent for the sins of the guilty. It's pure collectivism.

Yet people on that Facebook thread -- including some Objectivists -- claim that we're at war with the religion of Islam per se, that all Muslims are terrorists due to the Koranic command to wage war against the infidel, that to respect the property rights of Muslims would be suicidal, that Muslims should be barred from entering the country, that all Muslims should be treated as suspected terrorists, etc. That shocked me. It's not a view that's consistent with individual rights, nor with Objectivism.

So a few days ago, I briefly stepped into that thread to lend my support to an Objectivist philosopher under attack for arguing that law-abiding Muslims have a right to build what they please on their own property.

Here's what I wrote:

Private property must be respected, even when we find the views and actions of its owners odious, provided that they're not acting to violate rights. Totalitarian Islam is a major threat, but that threat needs to be fought by the military -- by destroying the states that sponsor terrorism -- not by violating private property rights in order to prevent a mosque from being built.

It's standard conservative strategy to use the rights-violating machinery of the state to achieve some (supposedly) noble purpose, rather than working for the kind of fundamental change necessary to eliminate the problem at its root. That fundamental change isn't "practical" or "realistic," conservatives say. It's "pie in the sky" fantasy.

Hence, for example, conservatives advocate "right to work" laws, rather than advocating for repeal of the unjust legislation (like the Wagner Act) that gives unions so much power. Fundamentally, that's because conservatives don't care about liberty, despite their occasional pro-rights rhetoric. They're just in a political struggle with the left: they want power, nothing more.

Ayn Rand, in contrast, always took a principled approach. That's why she opposed "right to work" laws -- and that's why she upheld the rights of communists to speak, provided that they weren't attempting to overthrow the US government. In her "Screen Guide for Americans," Ayn Rand wrote:

"Now a word of warning about the question of free speech. The principle of free speech requires that we do not use police force to forbid the Communists the expression of their ideas--which means that we do not pass laws forbidding them to speak. But the principle of free speech does not require that we furnish the Communists with the means to preach their ideas, and does not imply that we owe them jobs and support to advocate our own destruction at our own expense. The Constitutional guarantee of free speech reads: "Congress shall pass no law..." It does not require employers to be suckers.

"Let the Communists preach what they wish (so long as it remains mere talking) at the expense of those and in the employ of those who share their ideas. Let them create their own motion picture studios, if they can. But let us put an end to their use of our pictures, our studios and our money for the purpose of preaching our exploitation, enslavement and destruction. Freedom of speech does not imply that it is our duty to provide a knife for the murderer who wants to cut our throat."

Based on that, do you really think that Ayn Rand would have advocated violating the private property rights of Muslims? If so, then you're thinking like a conservative, not an Objectivist. You're being pragmatic, not principled. As the trajectory of modern conservatism into more and more statism has shown, that's a losing strategy.

I was hoping that the Objectivists on that thread might see fit to check their premises. I was disappointed, so I decided not to post further. However, I'd like to add a few more comments here.

If, without any known terrorist or criminal connections, the government need not respect the property rights of the Muslims seeking to build this mosque, then why respect the property rights of any Muslims? Can the government prevent the building of mosques elsewhere? Can it destroy existing mosques? Can it seize the home of Muslims? Can it shut down Islamic web sites, even if unconcerned with the infidel? Can it ban Muslims from advocating their religion? Can it imprison Muslim leaders? Can it intern Muslims in camps? Can it execute people for refusing to renounce Islam?

These are serious questions. If the rights of Muslim citizens need not be respected, then logic demands that a person answer "Yes" to all those questions. That person must endorse totalitarian control over Muslims -- solely for their ideas -- even when lacking any evidence of criminal activity or intentions. He must endorse the idea of thoughtcrime, i.e. punishment by the state for unwelcome ideas. The slope here is very, very slippery.

As Paul argued in his recent op-ed on free speech:

Free speech is essential to human life. Man's primary means of survival is his mind. In order to live, we must be free to reason and think. Hence we must be left free to acquire and transmit knowledge, which means we must be free to express our ideas, right or wrong.

That's what's at stake here.

Personally, I regard the principles underlying the call to ignore the property rights of these Muslims as a major threat to my liberty. Suppose that Muslims are stripped of their rights and shipped off to the gulag. Do you imagine that our government -- statist behemoth that it is -- wouldn't use those same powers to silence other critics? How long before Paul and I would be declared enemies of the state, stripped of our property, and sentenced to years of "re-education" or "labor"? Do you think that Leonard Peikoff, Yaron Brook, and Craig Biddle wouldn't be silenced, if not worse? Do you think that you'd be safe?

I'm not keen on the gulag. (Amazing, but true!) So if you're supporting political action that will get me there sooner, then we're not political allies. In fact, you're nothing but a wolf in sheep's clothing to me. You might be smart, pleasant, and conscientious; you might not wish me any harm; you might wish to promote liberty. Nonetheless, you're a danger to me and mine. I can't ignore that, and I hope that this post will give you pause.

I'm appalled that our government is not waging anything remotely like a proper war against the states that sponsor terrorism. Yet that problem cannot be solved by violating the rights of random Muslims in America. If our government is permitted to strip people of their rights based solely on ideology, the Muslim fanatics will be the least of our worries.

Read more...

Let Them Build the Mosque

I oppose Islam for the same basic reason I oppose all religion: supernaturalism is false, and people ought not believe things that are false. In today's world, Islam is a particularly destructive force, in many sectors sanctioning the abuse of women, totalitarianism, mass murder, and terrorism. Thankfully, Islam also has a more enlightened, Aristotelian tradition, and in the modern world at least some Muslims promote political and religious freedom and peace among nations.

I absolutely endorse freedom of conscience, which entails freedom of religion. I may disagree with your views on religion, politics, or whatever else, but, so long as you peacefully advocate those views, I will fight for your right to do so. As Ayn Rand eloquently argued, property rights are an integral aspect of any right; one cannot speak if forbidden to use one's pen, voice, or printing press, and one cannot freely practice religion if one cannot build a suitable meeting facility using one's own property and resources, or rent a facility from a consenting provider.

The implications of this seem pretty clear: individuals and voluntary organizations have the right to build religious structures on their own property, using their own resources, regardless of what anyone thinks about it, provided the religious practitioners do not violate anyone's rights in the process. Christians have the right to build Christian churches in Muslim neighborhoods. Atheists have the right to build centers in religious communities. Satanists have the right to build a church near a cathedral in a Catholic country. And Muslims have the right to build mosques even when some of the neighbors take offense. It's called freedom.

In fact, Muslims plan to build a mosque near the World Trade Center, as USA Today reports. (Trey Givens points out the proposed site is a couple blocks away from the WTC.) Daisy Khan, executive director of the American Society for Muslim Advancement, said the purpose of the facility is to amplify "the voices of the mainstream and silent majority of Muslims" and "be part of the rebuilding of downtown Manhattan." A local supporter added, "This is a tremendous gesture to show that we're [Muslims] not all full of hatred and bigotry."

Naturally, others strongly oppose the idea, seeing it as insensitive and a statement of Islamic victory over the West. And of course people have the right to express their views on either side.

What people do not have the right to do (using "right" in its fundamental sense as the standard of a society's laws) is forcibly block the building of a religious structure on private property. (As the USA Today article points out, the developers in fact own the building.)

While a number of people (including a few I respect) have argued that the mosque should be legally blocked, I do not find any of their arguments persuasive. Let us consider them.

Gotham Resistance claims that forbidding the mosque would preserve "decency, fairness, and the American way of life" and strike a blow against "radical Islam and political correctness." Yet, if we take the First Amendment seriously, then decency, fairness, and the American way of life means protecting religious liberty. If by "radical Islam" we mean violent Islam, then obviously the government should protect U.S. citizens from that. But I have seen no evidence that the building of the mosque will be a violent activity. People have the right to nonviolently practice Islam and political correctness.

Certainly the fact that some Americans are offended by the building of a mosque near the World Trade Center is no good reason to prohibit the mosque. Similarly, the fact that many Muslims are offended by images of Mohammed is no good reason to prohibit such images, and I participated in Everybody Draw Mohammed Day.

Over at the eclectically conservative Townhall, John Hawkins essentially argues that everybody's rights properly are subject to majority rule or nationalistic concerns. Hawkins argues that rights are not absolute; for instance, the First Amendment protects neither protests at funerals nor the burning of the American flag at a protest. But he is wrong. Americans have every right to protest whatever event they see fit, though the right of free speech does not imply that one may interfere with somebody else's use of private property or sanctioned use of public property. Thus, a protest that physically disrupts a funeral is the practice of violence, not free speech. Likewise, while one does not have a right to burn somebody else's flag, one has the right to treat one's own property at one's discretion (in consonance with others' rights).

If the right of free speech may be curtailed because the target of a protest might be offended, then there is no such thing as free speech. For instance, Christians could be forcibly prohibited from protesting abortion clinics because the owners and patrons of the clinic take offense.

Hawkins continues, "For other Muslims to try to benefit from that act [the destruction of the World Trade Center] by building a mosque on that spot is insensitive, disgusting, and utterly vile." I am not persuaded that the Muslims involved in the project intend to benefit from the destruction of the WTC. Whether or not they do, Americans have the right to do things with their own property and resources that others regard as "insensitive, disgusting, and utterly vile." (If that weren't the case, then Townhall also could be outlawed.)

Hawkins further argues, "Traditionally, Islam has built mosques on historical sites as a sign of conquest." The New York mosque will be named Cordoba House, according to Hawkins and others in honor of the mosque build in Spain that heralded the Islamist takeover of that nation. Moreover, the building of the mosque will encourage "radical Islam" overseas.

If there is real evidence that the builders of the mosque actively plan to forcibly overthrow the United States government or harm its citizens, then they should be prosecuted and imprisoned by the government. I have seen no such evidence.

If we are merely talking about some symbolic statement, then obviously Christian churches, "traditionally," have signified something very similar. (Try asking Central American Indians.) Free speech protects the right to make symbolic statements.

In fact, many Christian churches in the United States preach the conformity of U.S. law to Biblical law. Should all of those churches also be forcibly shut down?

It is true that the U.S. government has made only a pathetic, self-defeating effort to destroy America's enemies abroad. But the notion that the way to solve this problem is by domestic property restrictions is laughable.

Hawkins makes one final argument: regions of Europe have fallen to Sharia law, where local ruling Muslims act in defiance of regional law and blatantly violate the rights of locals. This I do not doubt. The U.S. government (in concert with local governments) should protect everyone in the country from violence and threats of violence. But violating property rights is neither an effective nor a just way to prevent the forcible imposition of Sharia law.

Hawkins's arguments illustrate that the opponents of the mosque wish to use their activism against the mosque as a proxy for fighting violent Islamists, a ridiculous approach. The way to fight violent Islam is to fight violent Islam, not restrict the property rights of apparently peaceful Muslims.

Another argument made against the mosque is that, allegedly, "the president of the Cordoba Initiative, Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf calls for sharia law in America." Moreover, Rauf's father "was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood." (I have not independently verified these claims.)

Let us grant that, in America, we do not punish children for the sins of their fathers.

Do the organizers of the New York mosque in fact actively conspire to violate the rights of people within the United States? If the answer is yes, then the government should investigate and prosecute them. If the answer is no, then violating their property rights is unjust, unpractical, and frankly unAmerican.

A final argument I have heard is that we do not know who is funding the mosque, and perhaps at least some of the funding is coming from Saudi Arabia, money that could be tied to terrorist organizations. Again, the way to solve such a problem is NOT to restrict the property rights of people within the U.S. The fundamental question is this: why do international terrorist organizations continue to threaten the United States? Does anyone seriously think that restricting New York property will strike a blow against international terrorists?

If the organizers of the New York mosque were willfully tied to terrorist organizations, then that would be a matter for government action. I have seen no evidence that that is the case. If they unknowingly and indirectly receive funds with ties to terrorist organizations, then the appropriate response by the government is to destroy the terrorist network, seize the network's assets, and thereby prevent the transfer of those funds. But then the New York Muslims should be free to continue building their mosque and to seek funds from other sources.

I fully support public education efforts and peaceful protests to make known the dangers of violent Islam. If the property were mine, certainly no mosque would be built there. But the property isn't mine. And, here in America, we defend rights of speech, religion, and property.

Frankly, the campaign to forcibly shut down the mosque reeks of scapegoating. Consider this incident (via Salon) reported by a New Jersey columnist regarding an anti-mosque rally:

At one point, a portion of the crowd menacingly surrounded two Egyptian men who were speaking Arabic and were thought to be Muslims.

"Go home," several shouted from the crowd.

"Get out," others shouted.

In fact, the two men – Joseph Nassralla and Karam El Masry — were not Muslims at all. They turned out to be Egyptian Coptic Christians who work for a California-based Christian satellite TV station called "The Way." Both said they had come to protest the mosque.

"I'm a Christian," Nassralla shouted to the crowd, his eyes bulging and beads of sweat rolling down his face.

But it was no use. The protesters had become so angry at what they thought were Muslims that New York City police officers had to rush in and pull Nassralla and El Masry to safety.

Is this the sort of behavior that Americans now sanction?

In her post on the matter, Diana Hsieh makes clear the horrific consequences of violating people's rights based on their religious convictions:

People should not be judged guilty by the law and stripped of their rights just because they accept or advocate certain ideas. A person has the right to hold whatever beliefs he pleases -- however wrong -- provided that he does not attempt to force them on others. He has the right to practice the religion of his choosing, so long as he does so without violating the rights of others.

Even in times of war, a government cannot justly treat all immigrants from the enemy's country or all adherents of the enemy's religion as enemies. To strip a person of his rights to life, liberty, or property without some concrete evidence of his sympathy for or assistance to the enemy is to punish the innocent for the sins of the guilty. It's pure collectivism. ...

If, without any known terrorist or criminal connections, the government need not respect the property rights of the Muslims seeking to build this mosque, then why respect the property rights of any Muslims? Can the government prevent the building of mosques elsewhere? Can it destroy existing mosques? Can it seize the home of Muslims? Can it shut down Islamic web sites, even if unconcerned with the infidel? Can it ban Muslims from advocating their religion? Can it imprison Muslim leaders? Can it intern Muslims in camps? Can it execute people for refusing to renounce Islam? ...

Personally, I regard the principles underlying the call to ignore the property rights of these Muslims as a major threat to my liberty. Suppose that Muslims are stripped of their rights and shipped off to the gulag. Do you imagine that our government -- statist behemoth that it is -- wouldn't use those same powers to silence other critics?

If anyone has evidence that the organizers of the New York mosque are involved in some criminal conspiracy or terrorist network, then let them bring forth the evidence. (If such evidence existed, the appropriate response hardly would be merely to restrict the property rights of the parties.) Otherwise, the property owners have the right to build whatever they wish on their property, regardless of who may take offense.

What is wrong with violent Islam is that it violates individual rights. It cannot be fought through additional violations of individual rights. If we wish to defeat violent Islam and its ideals, we must first commit ourselves fully to the protection of rights.

See Ari Armstrong's blog.

Read more...

Laura Bush Pro-Gay Marriage and Pro-Choice

Wow, I never expected that Laura Bush would support gay marriage and abortion rights:



Barbara Bush was pro-choice too. More details can be found in this 2005 Washington Post article: Women Closest to Bush Are Pro-Choice.

If we have to have another Bush in the White House -- and let's hope not, as they've been disasters on all fronts so far -- perhaps we should elect one of the women.

Read more...

By Endorsing Horrific 'Personhood' Measure, Republicans Court Defeat

[From Ari Armstrong's blog:] The following article originally was published May 28, 2010, by Grand Junction's Free Press.

By endorsing horrific 'personhood' measure, Republicans court defeat

by Linn and Ari Armstrong

All we can figure is that Colorado Republicans have a political death wish. What else can explain candidates like Scott McInnis and Jane Norton falling all over themselves to endorse the wildly unpopular, absurdly drafted, and life-damaging "personhood" measure headed for the ballot this fall?

Amendment 62, a slightly redrafted version of 2008's Amendment 48, would, if passed and fully enforced, ban all abortions, even in cases of risks to the woman's health, rape, incest, and fetal deformity. It would outlaw the birth control pill, the IUD, "morning after" medications, common fertility treatments, and some types of medical research.

It would subject women with suspicious miscarriages to possible criminal prosecution. It would require doctors to sacrifice the health of a woman to the survival of a zygote or fetus, which would inevitably result in the death of some women. It would require women to carry pregnancies to term against their wishes, by government force. [See details.]

And the sponsors of this nightmarish police-state proposal have the audacity to call it "pro-life." We can think of no other measure more harmful to the lives of actual people ever to gain ballot approval.

The measure may do better than the 27 percent of votes it gained last time. In 2008, Republicans were dispirited; this year they are energized. Voters, sick of big-spender George W. "Bailout" Bush and the shenanigans of state Republicans, decided to give the Democrats a chance. The Democrats proceeded to further muck up everything from health care to car manufacturing to foreign policy.

Moreover, the new measure replaces 2008 language about "the moment of fertilization" with a confusing line about "the beginning of biological development." While the measure's sponsors declare that still means fertilization, no doubt some voters will imagine otherwise. (We might as well call the proposal the Lawyer Enrichment Act for all the court disputes it would generate.)

Given that 73 percent of Colorado voters opposed the measure last time, obviously leading Republican candidates must endorse it now. Apparently Republicans think they can win in this state by alienating not only most Hispanic voters but most women (and their concerned male friends) as well.

Republicans seem to have forgotten that, in 2008, John McCain's selection of Sarah Palin for her evangelical credentials hardly helped the ticket. Meanwhile, Republican Marilyn Musgrave lost her Congressional seat largely because of her obsession with faith-based politics, and Democrats successfully hammered various anti-choice Republicans running for state legislature.

Apparently this year Republicans in tough races fear the religious right in the primaries more than they fear mainstream voters in the general election. Such Republicans hope that people are so fed up with the Democrats that they'll momentarily forget about Republican craziness.

We already knew that Ken Buck (candidate for U.S. Senate) and Dan Maes (candidate for governor) endorsed "personhood." Your senior author heard McInnis, the frontrunner for governor, endorse the measure. The Daily Sentinel reported that Jane Norton, the leading Republican for U.S. Senate, also endorsed it. (Cinamon Watson, a spokesperson for Norton, confirmed the endorsement; see your younger author's report at http://tinyurl.com/62norton.)

We do not doubt that Maes and Buck are True Believers: they believe that God forbids abortion. (That is hardly the Christian consensus, and more importantly law should not be based on sectarian dogmas.) The endorsements of McInnis and Norton look remarkably like pandering to us. [See the update about Maes.]

Previously Norton called for abortion bans with possible exceptions for "rape, incest, and life of the mother," exceptions which at least in the first two cases clash with the "personhood" measure. For once we side with Colorado Right to Life and "question Jane Norton's sincerity on this issue."

Interestingly, a new survey from Public Policy Polling shows Senator Michael Bennet taking the lead for the first time. We wonder whether Bennet can sustain that lead by attacking Norton over "personhood." (The same outfit shows a tied governor's race.)

Scott McInnis's endorsement is more bizarre. As the Denver Post reported, back in 1998 McInnis was on the Advisory Board of Republicans for Choice. A letter to the Federal Election Commission shows McInnis's name on the group's letterhead. "Scott has no memory of that," according to his spokesperson.

True, McInnis also built an anti-choice voting record, earning a zero rating from NARAL Pro-Choice America, for voting for such incremental measures as a partial-birth abortion ban except to save a woman's life. Yet we are supposed to believe that, in twelve years, McInnis has evolved from a pro-choice Republican to endorsing a measure outlawing the birth control pill as well as all abortions.

Frankly, we don't know which prospect is more frightening: that McInnis is pandering to the religious right, or that he really supports Amendment 62.

It remains to be seen whether, this year, Colorado Republicans will get away with threatening to impose dangerous sectarian dogmas by government force. But, over the long term, freedom-loving Coloradans aren't going to stand for it.

Linn Armstrong is a local political activist and firearms instructor with the Grand Valley Training Club. His son, Ari, edits FreeColorado.com from the Denver area.

Read more...

Maes Afflicted with GOP's Abortion Schizophrenia

[From Ari Armstrong's blog:] It is unfortunate for Dan Maes, who recently eked out a narrow victory in the Republican state assembly's vote for governor, that his last name rhymes with "ways," for the cries of "Both Ways Maes" have already begun. He simultaneously wants and opposes abortion bans, at the same time and in the same respect.

Recently I pointed out that many Republicans endorse hard-core abortion bans. For example, Rand Paul wants to ban abortion at the national level -- even in cases of rape and incest -- ban common forms of birth control, and ban medical research involving embryonic stem cells. (He also wants to legally force nutrition for those in permanently vegetative states.) In Colorado, every leading candidate for governor and U.S. Senate has endorsed Amendment 62, the "personhood" measure that would grant full legal rights to fertilized eggs. (For a detailed description of what the measure would entail, and why it is terrible, see the paper written by Diana Hsieh and me.)

And yet something odd is going on in the Republican Party. For at the Colorado assembly, where the most hard-core Republican activists gathered, 74 percent of participants declared "that pregnancy, abortion, and birth control are personal private matters not subject to government regulation or interference." Slightly more participants declared that fertilized eggs deserve legal protection and that Roe v. Wade should be overturned, prompting me to declare that Republicans are schizophrenic on the issue.

Maes is the latest Republican to fall victim to the affliction. In some (atypically useful) reporting from the Colorado Independent, Scot Kersgaard reveals Maes's (shall we say) modified stance on the issue.

Kersgaard relates Maes's interview with the Independent:

I am ardently pro-life, he said, but he added that "Roe v. Wade is the law of the land, and people tend to forget that. I would not try to undo that."

Yet he said he not only favors Amendment 62, the personhood amendment, but that he voted for a similar amendment when it was on the ballot two years ago and that he signed the petition to get it on the ballot this time. Still, he says the amendment is largely rhetorical and that he believes its passage would have no effect on the availability of legal abortions in Colorado.

"People are overestimating the personhood amendment. It simply defines life as beginning at conception. That's it. Who knows what the intent of it is? They are simply making a statement. That is all I see it as. Do they have another agenda? I don't know."

A cynic might note the interesting timing of Maes's newfound perspective on "personhood." Now that Maes is through with the religious right voters at the convention and must shift focus to the more-mainstream primary, he has softened his stance on abortion accordingly.

Yet Maes never has echoed the far-reaching stances of the religious right anti-abortion groups. In a survey from January, Maes clearly stated that he endorsed the "personhood" measure. Yet, when asked about birth control "that may prevent a fertilized egg or zygote from implanting in the uterus," Maes answered, "I support the laws as they stand." Yet, as I have noted, if fully enforced the "personhood" measure indeed would ban common forms of birth control, including the pill. Maes simply dodged other questions pertaining to abortion.

What are we to make of Maes's statment that Amendment 62 "simply defines life as beginning at conception?" Clearly his statement is false. The measure would grant to fertilized eggs rights of safety, property, and due process. The measure says nothing about when life begins. (Technically, life precedes conception, because both the egg and sperm are alive.) Instead, the measure defines that personhood begins with conception.

Maes misspoke, then, for one of two reasons. Either he signed the petition for the measure without actually reading it -- a sign of gross irresponsibility -- or he is simply lying about what he knows the measure says. Offhand I do not know which option the less comforting.

Regarding Maes's comment that Amendment 62 is "simply making a statement," I wonder how many bills Maes intends to sign, should he be elected governor, based on what he thinks the "statement" of a bill is, rather than based on the actual language, meaning, and enforcement of a bill. Is Maes ignoring the horrific consequences of Amendment 62 simply because he wants to make a "statement?" That in itself makes an important statement about Maes's approach to legislation.

Yet the fact that Maes performed so well at the convention says something both about his skills as a campaigner and the self-inflicted wounds his major competitor, Scott McInnis, suffers. Initially I wrote off Maes, yet he has proven himself in political battle. And, most of the time, Maes sounds like a reasonable and personable candidate.

Sometimes I even like Maes. Kersgaard reported: "He said the root of tea party unhappiness with the state of the country is that 'people just feel that Washington is taking away their personal freedoms. They just want to be left alone.'"

My sense is that the "Dr. Liberty" side of Maes is stronger than the "Mr. Police State." But such ideological schizophrenia is hardly comforting, whether in a candidate or in a party at large.

Read more...

Rand Paul Wants Total Abortion Bans

[From Ari Armstrong's blog:] Rand Paul, son of Congressman Ron Paul, recently made news when, after winning the Kentucky GOP primary for U.S. Senate, he declared that private discrimination should be legal on the basis of property rights and free association.

Yet Paul believes the government should control women's bodies by preventing them from obtaining abortions and common forms of birth control. He thinks a store owner has the right to keep out black patrons, but he does not think a woman has the right to control her own reproductive functions. He doesn't think government should interfere to stop private racism, but he thinks government should throw women and their doctors in prison for facilitating abortions.

The logical conclusion of abortion bans is that government agents should forcibly restrain women to prevent them from getting abortions. After all, if abortion is murder, as advocates of abortion bans routinely claim, then driving down the street to obtain an abortion is morally and legally equivalent to driving down the street with a loaded shotgun to blow your neighbor's head off. Police have every right to arrest and forcibly restrain threatening individuals. If abortion is murder, then a woman who declares her intent to get an abortion has threatened murder and must be strapped down if necessary to ensure delivery.

But a fertilized egg is not a person. A fertilized egg does not properly have the legal rights of a born infant. Abortion is not murder. Women have every right to take birth control drugs or obtain an abortion. Abortion bans place a woman's body under the control of the government and threaten to unleash a heavy-handed police state. (For a more complete case against abortion bans, see the paper written by Diana Hsieh and me.)

As a would-be abortion banner, Paul is the enemy of liberty, property rights, and free association.

Consider what Paul writes on his web page:

I am 100% pro life. I believe abortion is taking the life of an innocent human being.

I believe life begins at conception and it is the duty of our government to protect this life.

I will always vote for any and all legislation that would end abortion or lead us in the direction of ending abortion.
I believe in a Human Life Amendment and a Life at Conception Act as federal solutions to the abortion issue. I also believe that while we are working toward this goal, there are many other things we can accomplish in the near term. ...

In addition, I believe we may be able to save millions of lives in the near future by allowing states to pass their own anti-abortion laws. If states were able to do so, I sincerely believe many -- including Kentucky -- would do so tomorrow, saving hundreds of thousands of lives.

Before 1973, abortion was illegal in most states. Since Roe v. Wade, over 50 million children have died in abortion procedures.

I would strongly support legislation restricting federal courts from hearing cases like Roe v. Wade. Such legislation would only require a majority vote, making it more likely to pass than a pro-life constitutional amendment.

I would support legislation, a Sanctity of Life Amendment, establishing the principle that life begins at conception. This legislation would define life at conception in law, as a scientific statement.

As your Senator, there are many ways I can help end abortion. I will fight for each and every one of them.

Paul helpfully includes links to two Kentucky surveys on abortion and related matters.

In response to a survey from the Kentucky Right to Life Association Political Action Committee, Paul supported the following positions:

* A nation abortion ban.

* Abortion bans even in cases of rape and incest.

* Possible bans on "chemical abortions, such as RU-486, the abortion pill, and other drugs known to prevent the newly created human being from attaching to his/her mother's womb (implantation)." Notably, the birth control pill and the IUD can prevent implantation. (The survey asks whether the responder is "morally and/or medically opposed to chemical abortions," which does not necessarily imply support for outright bans.)

* Bans on the medical use of embryonic stem cells.

* Legally required "nutrition and hydration" for "cognitively disabled people, like Terri Schiavo." The survey dishonestly conflates the condition of Schiavo, who was in a vegetative state for many years, with any sort of "disability."

In response to the Northern Kentucky Right to Life 2010 Election Candidate Questionnaire, Paul supported the following positions:

* A national abortion ban.

* Criminal penalties for anyone who facilitates an abortion, except "to prevent the death of the mother who is suffering from a physical pathology." (No exception is made for abortions that would merely protect the health of the woman.)

* Bans on the medical use of embryonic stem cells.

* Bans on the "withdrawal from an infant, incompetent, or comatose person of food and water," "except in cases where death is imminent and the patient cannot assimilate food or water." As with the last survey, this one dishonestly conflates people with slight medical conditions with the medically brain-dead.

In light of Paul's views on abortion, reproduction, and end-of-life decisions, nobody should be asking whether Paul advocates too much liberty.

Read more...

Resolved: Republicans Are Schizophrenic on Abortion

[From Ari Armtrong's blog:] As I recently noted, Republican U.S. Senate candidate Jane Norton has endorsed the "personhood" ballot measure to grant full legal rights to fertilized eggs. Every other leading Republican candidate for U.S. Senate and governor has done the same.

So Colorado Republicans are over-the-top crazy for abortion bans, right? Perhaps.

At the recent state convention, Republicans passed 59 resolutions ranging from a condemnation of "net neutrality" to a recommendation to vote against retention of four state Supreme Court justices. Most of the resolutions passed with near-unanimity. The only resolutions to garner double-digit opposition pertain to the line-item veto, Congressional term limits, and abortion and reproductive matters.

Particularly odd is the apparently contradictory vote on abortion, as illustrated by the following results:

30. It is resolved by Colorado Republicans that life begins at conception and is deserving of legal protection from conception until natural death.
Total Votes 3008
YES 2378 79.06%
NO 630 20.94%

31. It is resolved that Colorado Republicans support overturning Roe v. Wade.
Total Votes 2991
YES 2340 78.23%
NO 651 21.77%

32. It is resolved by Colorado Republicans that pregnancy, abortion, and birth control are personal private matters not subject to government regulation or interference.
Total Votes 2984
YES 2210 74.06%
NO 774 25.94%

It is interesting to note that, at the convention, where the most hard-core Republican activists gathered, one in five strongly rejected abortion-ban language.

But what explains the clash between resolutions 30 and 32 (assuming the results were correctly reported)? How can so many Republicans simultaneously advocate legal rights for fertilized eggs and declare "that pregnancy, abortion, and birth control are personal private matters not subject to government regulation or interference?"

One possible explanation is that most of those voting rushed through the measures and had no idea what they were voting to support. But I'd like to think the participants took the exercise a little more seriously than that.

Why might somebody intentionally vote "yes" on both 30 and 32? First notice the ambiguities of Resolution 30. The fact that, in some sense, "life begins at conception," says nothing about whether that life is a person with full legal rights. (Technically, life precedes conception, in that both the egg and the sperm are alive.) Moreover, the nature of the "legal protection" is not specified. I agree that a woman's embryo or fetus deserves legal protection as an extension of the rights of the woman; it is properly illegal to harm a fetus against the wishes of the woman carrying it.

I think a lot of Republicans dislike irresponsible sex that results in unwanted pregnancies. (Who doesn't dislike that?) Many Republicans, I believe, allow themselves to blur the line between disapproval of irresponsible behavior resulting in abortion and legal prohibitions of abortion. Such Republicans think it's sad that some women get abortions (and it is), and they don't bother to think carefully about the implications of the bans advocated by the religious right. (For a detailed account of those implications, see the paper by Diana Hsieh and me.)

Do most Republicans really want to send women, their doctors, and their complicit spouses to prison for facilitating abortions? Do most Republicans really want to outlaw the birth control pill and the IUD because those things might cause the destruction of a fertilized egg? Do most Republicans really want to outlaw common fertility treatments that result in the destruction of fertilized eggs? Do most Republicans really want to empower police and prosecutors to go after women who miscarry under suspicious circumstances? Do most Republicans really want to put decisions about a woman's health in the hands of politicians, bureaucrats, and prosecutors?

I don't think so.

What, then, explains the fact that Republican candidates are falling all over themselves to endorse the "personhood" measure, Amendment 62?

Apparently those candidates think their endorsements will gain religious right votes in the primaries without costing them much support among Republicans who dislike the measure.

Consider a May 24 announcement from Jane Norton's campaign:

Today, Jane Norton, candidate for U.S. Senate, announced two major conservative endorsements. The American Conservative Union PAC (ACU PAC) and the Family Research Council Action PAC (FRC Action PAC) recognized Norton’s conservative credentials and endorsed her bid for the U.S. Senate. ...

“Jane Norton has been a true friend of the family in Colorado and will continue to do so when elected to the Senate. We need Senators who will fight to defend the family against the radicalism of the Left in the U.S. Senate, and who won’t be a rubber stamp for the President’s extreme agenda. We are confident Ms. Norton will serve with distinction,” said Tony Perkins, chairman of FRC Action PAC.

“Jane has been a leader in the fight to protect the unborn, and has worked to keep taxpayer dollars from funding abortion. As the executive director of the Public Health Department in Colorado, Jane was instrumental in de-funding Planned Parenthood in her state. She has been a true champion for faith, family and freedom,” added Perkins.

“Her years of experience as a leader for pro-family causes in Colorado will serve Ms. Norton well in the Senate. FRC Action PAC believes that Jane Norton will be a true advocate for the issues that best uphold and strengthen families. We are proud to support her candidacy,” concluded Perkins.

Earlier this year, Norton also won the endorsement of the Susan B. Anthony List, a conservative, pro-life organization.

Norton has also sought, and received, the support of Sarah Palin, known for her anti-abortion sentiments.

Yet Republicans who pander to the religious right or tolerate its horrific, police-state proposals are fools. Such Republicans wistfully hope that Amendment 62 doesn't really mean what its sponsors say it means, or that it will never really be enforced. They play a dangerous game.

Read more...

Did Jane Norton Endorse Amendment 62? Yes!

[From Ari Armstrong's blog:] UPDATE: Today [May 20] at 1:17 p.m., I received the following conclusive email from Cinamon Watson: "Jane supports the personhood amendment." I thank Watson and Norton's office for this forthright and definitive answer to my question. Of course, that does not explain how Norton's previously expressed views about exceptions in cases of rape and incest fit in with her endorsement of Amendment 62. What follows was written earlier today and provides the background of the story.

Okay, John Tomasic, now you may legitimately complain that Jane Norton's office is not responsive to my questions.

Does Jane Norton endorse the "personhood" measure, Amendment 62 on this year's state ballot?

It is a simple yes or no question, a question that Norton has so far refused to answer.

For those unfamiliar with the story, Norton is the presumed Republican frontrunner for U.S. Senate. Amendment 62 is the measure that would grant fertilized eggs full legal rights; I criticized it in February in a first and second article. I also coauthored a lengthy criticism of the measure in its 2008 form.

I already knew that Ken Buck and Dan Maes, underdog candidates for U.S. Senate and governor, respectively, endorsed personhood. They seem to really believe it's a good idea, and they have nothing to lose and religious right votes to pick up. But, given 73 percent of voters trounced the 2008 version of the measure, I was surprised to read that Norton and Scott McInnis, the frontrunners in the races, had also endorsed "personhood."

I first read the claim about the endorsements of Norton and McInnis on May 10 at ColoradoPols.com. Even though Colorado Pols cited a Grand Junction Daily Sentinel article about the endorsements, I did not see enough evidence to convince me at that time. In my Twitter post linking to that article, I stated, "I have not seen evidence of these alleged endorsements."

On May 11, the Colorado Independent, also citing the Sentinel, stated, "This year, the entire slate of Republican candidates for governor and the U.S. Senate are supporting the ['personhood'] amendment."

My dad Linn heard McInnis endorse the measure in person. So McInnis's endorsement is not in question. But, until today, I still did not have a good sense of whether Norton had endorsed it.

Here is what the May 10 Sentinel article by Charles Ashby states:

The last time the personhood amendment made the Colorado ballot in 2008, a number of anti-abortion Republican leaders either distanced themselves from it or outright opposed the idea because they said it went too far.

None of that seems to be the case with the 2010 version of the measure, political observers say.

As a result, all of the top-named GOP candidates for governor and the U.S. Senate have publicly supported the ballot question that would declare that life begins at conception. ...

[W[hile [Gualberto] Garcia Jones [director of Personhood Colorado] disagreed with arguments against the 2008 ballot question now just as much as he did then, he was surprised to learn it's winning support among such mainstream political candidates as Jane Norton and Ken Buck, who are running for U.S. Senate, and Dan Maes and Scott McInnis, who announced his support for the idea at a Western Colorado Conservative Alliance debate last week.

The article offers a particular event where McInnis endorsed the measure, but it offers no such detail about Norton. So I remained curious.

I called Cinamon Watson, a spokesperson for Norton, on May 17. Watson confirmed she was aware of the Sentinel story. I asked her whether it was true or false that Norton had endorsed "personhood." Watson said she would send me the answer via email.

By yesterday (May 19), I still had not heard back, so I called Watson again. "I will get it to you today," she said. I left her a voice mail near the end of the day. Today, after trying to reach Watson by her cell phone and at Norton's office, I finally received an email. Drum roll please...

Sorry this did not get to you yesterday:

"Jane believes that life begins at conception."

I had to wait three days for that?

The perceptive reader may notice that Watson did not, in fact, answer my question.

Thankfully, the good Mr. Ashby was more helpful. Late last night I sent Ashby an email asking him about the Norton endorsement.

Ashby referred me to Norton's web site:

The U. S. Constitution does not specifically speak about a right to an abortion. For decades, this important issue was left to the states to decide. In 1973, the U. S. Supreme Court, in the case of Roe v. Wade, ruled that the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution included a right to privacy which, in turn, included a right to an abortion. While I believe this decision was wrongly decided and should be overturned, it is unfortunately the law of the land today. I would support a Constitutional Amendment to protect unborn human life and will strive to promote a culture of life where all life (including the elderly, children, disabled, ill, and the unborn) is valued and protected. While I believe there may be certain limited circumstances - rape, incest, and life of the mother - when exceptions are needed, I oppose abortion because I believe human life begins at conception. I will oppose all federal funding of abortion. I support the appointment of judges to federal courts, including the Supreme Court, who will strictly construe the U. S. Constitution and not manufacture new rights or remedies not specifically provided for by our Founding Fathers in the Constitution.

By my reading, that statement does not constitute an endorsement of Amendment 62. I think the "Constitutional Amendment" to which Norton refers likely is an unspecified federal measure. Further, Norton's exceptions for rape and incest clearly contradict the impact of Amendment 62, as Colorado Right to Life recognizes: "Republican Jane Norton has supported 'abortion exceptions' in the past (i.e. for rape & incest, which is from our perspective 'pro-abortion with exceptions')."

So what I think happened is that Ashby unintentionally misinterpreted the intended meaning of Norton's web page as the support for his claim that Norton endorsed "personhood." [Update: Ashby continues to think that his original reading of Norton's web page was the correct one. Regardless of whether Norton intended to endorse Amendment 62 on her web page, obviously now her endorsement of it is entirely clear.]

Ashby also unintentionally put Norton in a tight corner just before the state assembly, which is this Saturday.

Apparently Norton's strategy was to remain silent on Amendment 62 and respond with vague generalities in the hopes of appeasing both sides. Ashby's report upset the fence on which Norton was perched and made the world believe she had endorsed "personhood." The last thing Norton wants to do is take a definitive stand on the issue. If she now declares she does not, after all, endorse the measure, that will infuriate the religious right, which wields significant power in the GOP primaries. If she affirms that she does endorse it, that will open her up to hard-hitting attacks in the general election.

And so she continues to dodge the question.

At least Buck has the courage of his convictions on this score, though he is, by my lights, dead wrong.

I will send Watson the link to this article. If Norton sends me a more clarifying response, I will update this page accordingly. [Please see the update at the top of this article, which shows that Norton definitively endorses "personhood."]

This Norton conundrum does illustrate nicely the problems that continue to plague the Republican Party.

Read more...

ObamaCare and Abortion

[From Ari Armstrong's blog:] One of the big fights leading up to the vote on the Democratic health bill (ObamaCare) was over abortion funding. The basic dilemma is whether tax-subsidized health care -- and taxes already fund most U.S. health costs -- will cover abortions.

What both sides seem to forget is that, when politicians control health care, it turns out that politicians control health care. So whether politicians will permit tax funds to subsidize abortions depends entirely on which politicians get into power.

Anti-abortion Christians who think that an executive order or even an explicit legislative declaration can permanently prevent the tax subsidization of abortions are simply delusional. Various Catholic groups endorse politically run medicine but insist that it not subsidize abortions. But when you render unto Caesar the control of medicine, Caesar will dip into tax funds to pay for whatever medical procedures he damn well pleases. That U.S. medicine is controlled by thousands of pigmy Caesars who vote, bicker, and draft reams of regulations first does not alter that basic fact.

Leftists who wish to protect a woman's right to choose to get an abortion, but who deny to all women and men the right to associate freely to obtain medicine and insurance, should contemplate a possible future in which the religious right seizes control of the political machinery built by the left. Prohibitions on the tax funding of abortions will be the least of our worries.

I have some questions for the religious right. Do you really care, at all, about liberty in medicine? Does forcing somebody to finance a kidney transplant register a blip on your moral radar? Or are you perfectly fine with the forcible redistribution of wealth to fund health care, so long as it doesn't include abortions? If the left offered to completely ban abortions, in exchange for the complete political control of medicine, is that a bargain you'd happily accept?

I have only a couple of questions for the left. What sort of world do you think we'll be living in if the religious right takes over the Democratic health law? How is politically run health care remotely consistent with the exhortation to "keep your laws off of my body?"

I don't really expect either the religious right or the left to attempt to answer these questions. Even the attempt to answer them would indicate some residual concern with liberty and individual rights, which I do not believe that many on either side any longer possess.

Read more...

Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia are Fundamental Rights

A Real-Life Story of Dying With Dignity by Physician-Assisted Suicide

The PBS show, “Frontline,” documented the story of Craig Ewert, a 59-year old American with Lou Gehrig’s disease who chose to die by assisted suicide in Zurich, Switzerland in September, 2006.

Assisted suicide is legal in the U.S. for residents of Washington, Oregon and Montana; and for citizens of Switzerland, Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg (where euthanasia is also legal). In physician-assisted suicide, the physician writes the prescription for the lethal medication, but the patient administers it. In euthanasia, someone else administers the lethal medication with the patient’s consent. But it is only in Switzerland that non-citizens can seek physician-assisted suicide.

Mr. Ewert first considered suicide only five months after his diagnosis, when he “had deteriorated enough.” As his wife was doing his morning shave, a task he could no longer perform himself, he said “You can only watch so much of yourself drain away before you say this is an empty shell. Once I become completely paralyzed, I will take in some nutrients through a tube in my stomach and I will have to excrete and be cleaned and washed. And it’s painful.”

The Ewerts, who had settled in England, sought help through a Swiss organization called Dignitas, which caters only to foreigners seeking assisted suicide. In compliance with Swiss Law, Mr. Ewert himself activated a timer on his breathing-assistance device (using his teeth) to cause it to stop working so it wouldn’t continue to ventilate him after his own respirations ceased. Given his love of music, Mr. Ewert wanted a recording of the First Movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony to play during his final journey. He and his wife kissed and said goodbye to each other, then he drank a lethal-strength prescription sedative. Within minutes, he peacefully fell asleep. The ventilator turned off. And he never reawakened.

Assisted Suicide is Legal But Not a Right

Unfortunate for advocates for the right to die, bills being considered by the Swiss legislature this year may place more legal restrictions on right-to-die organizations in Switzerland.

The concern over Switzerland’s “Suicide Tourism” has come about recently because of controversies concerning Dignitas and such cases like the assisted suicides of a rugby player that had become paralyzed and a couple in which one spouse was relatively healthy.

In Washington and Oregon, assisted suicide is legal because the majority of voters approved it, and court challenges upheld the law.

In Montana, the newest state to permit physician-assisted suicide, the state supreme court ruled on Dec. 31, 2009 that physicians who write lethal prescriptions for mentally competent, terminally-ill patients, would be shielded from homicide liability. The court declined to rule on the constitutionality of the issue.

Because assisted suicide is not recognized as an absolute right, not everyone who wants to end his or her life has been able to. As an example, in Switzerland, a couple who wanted to die together was declined services because the husband, who had serious heart disease, was not considered sick enough and his wife was healthy. Months later, the wife unexpectedly died of cancer, and the husband continues to survive without her. They were unable to fulfill their wish to die together as they had lived---inseparable from the start.

The Religious Right Continues to Oppose Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia

Not surprisingly, the Religious Right remains opposed on Christian religious grounds to physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia. This was reiterated at the Religious Right’s September, 2009 summit called the “Manhattan Declaration” where Orthodox, Catholic and Evangelical Christian leaders drew the line in the sand on their well-known positions on social issues.

What About the Religious Left?

While the Religious Right opposes physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia for biblical reasons, the religious left seems to oppose it on “social” grounds.

In a 2007 Pew Forum interview, self-called “Progressive” theologian Robert P. Jones argues that assisted suicide/euthanasia could end up being performed in a biased fashion on the poor, disabled, or those without health insurance. That is, they could be pressured into choosing to prematurely end their lives for financial or social reasons. He said, “in our current health care context we can't justly implement it in a way that doesn't lead to increased risk to the disadvantaged and the vulnerable in society.”

But when asked by the interviewer, “Is there any evidence in Oregon that the sorts of problems that you've raised have actually occurred?”, Jones answers,
“On their face, the official reports out of Oregon so far don't seem to indicate that these sorts of problems have occurred.”

Ezekiel Emmanuel, a physician-ethicist and close advisor to the Obama Administration on health care policy, wrote in 1997 about his opposition to the right to die. He argues, first, patients do not need physician-assisted suicide or euthanasia because, “Patients who are being kept alive by technology and want to end their lives already have a recognized constitutional right to stop any and all medical interventions, from respirators to antibiotics.” And second, survey data show that a “significant majority of Americans oppose physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia except in the limited case of a terminally ill patient with uncontrollable pain.”

The only statement I could find from Obama was when he was questioned during the presidential campaign about physician-assisted suicide. He said, “I am in favor of palliative medicine in circumstances where someone is terminally ill. ... I'm mindful of the legitimate interests of states to prevent a slide from palliative treatments into euthanasia. On the other hand, I think that the people of Oregon did a service for the country in recognizing that as the population gets older we've got to think about issues of end-of-life care.”

What's Wrong With Arguments Against the Right To Die?

As far as the Religious Right’s intransigent opposition to assisted suicide and euthanasia, their argument is entirely based on religion beliefs about what God says. If their argument were to prevail legally, it would be an horrific violation of the separation of church and state (a quest they appear never to give up on).

Ezekiel Emmanuel’s arguments derive from pragmatism and collectivism when he says that patients can refuse life-sustaining care anyway (and then supposedly die), and that society should do what the majority wants according to polls. What about what the individual wants? Mr. Ewert said, “If someone wants to take their own life, you may not think it’s a good reason, but it’s that person’s life.” Nothing in Dr. Emmanuel’s argument says that an individual owns his own life.

Theologian Robert Jones is making a theoretical allegation that the poor, disabled and uninsured will be unjustly pressured to prematurely end their lives because of economic circumstances or perceptions of their “value” as human beings (in the case of the disabled). He provides no evidence to support this absurd and inflammatory position.

As far as Obama, he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Palliative Care is a specialty medical service that deals with the relief of symptoms and stress associated with serious illness, regardless of the prognosis. Palliative care has nothing whatsoever to do with assisted suicide or euthanasia, and it is ridiculous to consider some possible “slide” from Palliative Care to assisted suicide/euthanasia. His ignorant argument is a nothing, and no more can be said of it.

The Right To Die is a Corollary of the Right to Life

Assisted suicide in the U.S. and Europe, and euthanasia in Europe are not Constitutionally-protected. The U.S. Supreme Court in 1997 ruled unanimously that assisted suicide is not Constitutionally-protected, but up to the states to decide. In Europe, laws were enacted by parliamentary law and subject to revision.

Ayn Rand said, “There is only one fundamental right (all the others are its consequences or corollaries): a man’s right to his own life."

As well-stated by Thomas Bowden in a 2007 Op-Ed,

The Declaration of Independence proclaimed, for the first time in the history of nations, that each person exists as an end in himself. This basic truth--which finds political expression in the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness--means, in practical terms, that you need no one's permission to live, and that no one may forcibly obstruct your efforts to achieve your own personal happiness.

I would argue that the right to die is a corollary of the right to life. A free person does not belong to God, to the State, to the medical establishment or to anyone else. If a rational, competent person decides that life is not worth living because of illness, suffering, loss of a loved one, untreatable hopelessness, or whatever reason, then that person has the right to end his or her life. Just as one should be left free to pursue rational values that do not violate others' rights, one should be free to terminate their life on their terms (excluding obvious instances when that's not possible, like getting struck by lightening or a bus).

The right to choose one’s own death (if such a choice becomes possible) is as absolute as the right to one’s own life. Period.

Read more...

Abortion as a Political Football

My husband, Dr. Paul Hsieh of Freedom and Individual Rights in Medicine at www.WeStandFIRM.org, recently published an op-ed in the Denver Post on how government welfare and controls in medicine transform controversial procedures from personal decisions into political footballs.

As we've seen clearly of late, that's a huge problem with abortion -- and that's one reason why I'm so disappointed that the most prominent advocates of abortion rights (such as Planned Parenthood and NARAL) supported the recent health care reform bill.

Advocates of abortion rights must learn that they cannot protect a woman's right to choose without advocating markets free of government controls and welfare.

Here is his op-ed:

Turning medicine into political football
Paul Hsieh; Denver Post, 03/24/2010

During President Obama's final push for "universal health care" legislation, his biggest obstacle was not Republicans but rather anti-abortion Democrats let by Congressman Bart Stupak (D-Michigan).

Stupak eventually reached a last-minute deal with the White House on federal funding of abortion services. But no one should be surprised that under government-controlled health insurance, medical coverage decisions will be based on political considerations. Rather, the recent wrangling over abortion will be a mere preview of special-interest battles to come as health care becomes a permanent political football.

Abortion has already been a political football in those sectors of health insurance under government control. In 1985, the Department of Defense denied abortion coverage for women with military health insurance unless the mother's life was in danger. In 1988, the DOD issued additional rules prohibiting women from obtaining abortions with their own private money at military facilities overseas. President Clinton reversed this ban in 1993, but anti-abortion lawmakers reinstated it in 1995 through the defense appropriations bill.

Women covered by the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP) have been similarly affected. Over the past thirty years, their abortion coverage has also swung from permitted to highly restricted depending on which political party was in power.

Nor will the problem of politicized health benefits be confined to abortion. ObamaCare gives the U.S. Preventative Services Task Force (USPSTF) the authority to determine which preventive health services must be covered by private insurance. The USPSTF is the same group that recently issued controversial guidelines recommending that screening mammography be restricted to women over age 50, despite the fact that medical organizations such as the American Cancer Society have long recommended routine mammography beginning at age 40, based on years of scientific research.

Due to public outrage, the Senate later amended its bill to override the USPSTF guidelines — in this particular case. As with abortions for military families, mammography coverage under government-controlled health insurance was determined primarily by politics and lobbying. Similar lobbying will occur as Americans start demanding coverage for other procedures not approved by the USPSTF, such as virtual colonography (a new method of detecting early colon cancer which President Obama himself recently underwent).

Such lobbying is already a constant feature under the Massachusetts system of mandatory insurance in place since 2006, which was the model for ObamaCare. Under any system of mandatory insurance, the government must necessarily determine what constitutes an "acceptable" policy. This creates a giant magnet for special interest groups seeking to include their favorite benefit in the mandatory package.

Massachusetts residents must therefore purchase numerous benefits they may neither need nor want, such as in vitro fertilization and chiropractor services. Since 2006, special interest groups have successfully lobbied to include 16 new benefits in the mandatory package (including lay midwives, orthotics, and drug abuse treatment) — and the state legislature is considering 70 more.

Although I am pro-choice on abortion, abortion opponents should not be forced to fund another woman's abortion. More broadly, individuals have the right to spend their own money for their benefit according to their values. ObamaCare would violate that right by forcing each person to spend his own money on terms set by lobbyists and bureaucrats, rather than based on his individual needs and values.

Instead of politically-controlled mandatory health insurance, we need free-market reforms that allow consumers to decide which benefits they wish to purchase. Such reforms include eliminating mandatory benefits, allowing insurers to compete across state lines, and allowing patients to use Health Savings Accounts for routine expenses, and low-cost "catastrophic-only" plans to cover rare expensive events.

Not only would these reforms reduce insurance costs by up to 50 percent, they would respect each individual's right to make insurance decisions for himself.

Government-controlled health insurance will mean politically-controlled medicine — not only with respect to abortion but for health services in general. ObamaCare will turn medicine into a game of permanent political football, where the politically favored perpetually pound ordinary Americans without special "pull." Until we replace ObamaCare with free-market reforms, Americans had better get used to being the permanent tackling dummies for special-interest groups.

Paul Hsieh, M.D., is co-founder of Freedom and Individual Rights in Medicine at www.WeStandFIRM.org. He practices medicine in the south Denver metro area.

Read more...

Republicans Endorse Absurd 'Personhood' Measure

[From Ari Armstrong's blog:] Colorado Republicans better hope the Secretary of State finds that the "personhood" supporters -- those who want to define a fertilized egg as a person will full legal rights -- don't have enough signatures for the ballot, after all.

Personhood Colorado announced today:

Personhood Colorado, sponsors of the 2010 Personhood Amendment, today submitted 46,671 signatures to the Colorado Secretary of State's office.

On March 4, the Colorado Secretary of State disclosed that 20.63% of the 79,648 signatures submitted by Personhood Colorado were invalid. As allowed by Colorado law, volunteers then had 15 days to replace the invalid signatures with new, valid voter signatures. That translated to over 1,000 signatures per day.

The Huffington Post also reports the story.

For a comprehensive explanation for why the measure is wrong in theory and horrifying in practice, see the paper on the 2008 version of the measure by Diana Hsieh and me. In brief, the measure if fully implemented would outlaw practically all abortions, even in cases of rape, incest, fetal deformity, and risk to the woman's health; outlaw common forms of birth control including the pill; and outlaw most fertility treatments involving egg implantation.

Even more disturbing, many Colorado Republicans have endorsed the measure. I already knew that underdog candidate for governor, Dan Maes, endorsed it, though he seems confused by some of the measure's implications.

Today I learned from the Christian Family Alliance of Colorado that Ken Buck -- a strong challenger for U.S. Senate -- and both Cory Gardner and Tom Lucero -- who are trying to upset Betsy Markey in the Fourth Congressional -- have also endorsed the measure.

I want to make something clear at the outset, just so no Republicans are surprised later on: I will vote against any candidate who endorses the monstrous "personhood" measure. That is, I will not abstain from voting, I will vote for the Democrat, as my strongest available statement.

Of course, there is still time for any candidate who has endorsed the measure to repent, confess the error of his or her ways, and articulate a position closer to sanity.

Did Republicans somehow fail to notice that the 2008 "personhood" measure got trounced, and overall voters responded negatively to the faith-based politics of the GOP?

Of course, 2010 is a new election cycle, and voters may be so utterly disgusted with the Democrats' handling of the economy that they may vote Republican, regardless of what loons the GOP throws up.

Betsy Markey, for example, has said she plans to vote for the disgusting Democratic health bill, giving me the impression that she has already resigned to losing. (I'm not in Markey's district, thankfully, so I won't have to hold my nose and vote for her, assuming her opponents stick with their foolish endorsements of "personhood.")

Likewise, I don't think either Michael Bennet or Andrew Romanoff can keep the U.S. Senate seat for the Dems, regardless of who the opponent is. Those two are hard-left Denver Democrats, and they've had to run further left in the primary. Still, it could become a tough race, and "personhood" offers rich ground for effective attack ads. (So far as I can determine, Jane Norton, still the most likely candidate, has remained silent on the "personhood" issue.)

In the governor's race, John Hickenlooper is avoiding a primary and trumpeting his pro-business sentiments and credentials. I think Hickenlooper will be pretty tough to beat. Like Norton, frontrunner Scott McInnis has (so far as I can tell) remained silent on "personhood," but he has tried to toe the anti-abortion line, so the appearance of the "personhood" measure on the ballot could still hurt him significantly. If the measure indeed makes the ballot, voters will be continually reminded about the ultimate aims of the anti-abortion zealots and the severe harms their laws would impose.

Do I despise Democrats or Republicans more? As today's political news illustrates, that depends entirely on which party I'm thinking of at a given moment.

Read more...

The Separation of Church and State

I want to strongly recommend this recently-released lecture by Onkar Ghate on "The Separation of Church and State," given at OCON in 2009. It was particularly stellar.

The Separation of Church and State
By Onkar Ghate

With religion on the rise in America, maintaining the separation of church and state is now a pressing issue. This talk begins with an examination of the contemporary debate about the principle of separating religion from government. Dr. Ghate argues that both sides of the contemporary debate are mistaken and explains why today even most well-meaning Americans are unable to mount a tenable defense of the principle. To understand what the principle actually means, Dr. Ghate then considers some of the history behind the principle, focusing on John Locke's crucial contributions. Finally, Dr. Ghate sketches what a full philosophical argument for the separation of church and state looks like.

(86 min., with Q & A)

Audio CD; 2-CD set: $20.95

For an understanding of the philosophic foundation of the secular government, including the problems with the standard attacks on and defenses thereof, you won't find anything better. Most people in the audience were surprised and delighted by the discussion of John Locke on faith. I wasn't surprised, but I was delighted! I've always taught a class on "Faith and Reason" in my Introduction to Philosophy courses, and Locke is undoubtedly the highlight. While he defends faith, his defense is such that faith cannot sustain any foothold in cognition. (Locke is far, far better than Thomas Aquinas on this issue... but that's a subject for a future podcast.)

Read more...